


Your Ivy Grows (and now I'm covered in you)

by BeckyBubbles



Category: Anne of Green Gables (TV 1985) & Related Fandoms, Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery, Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Based on a Taylor Swift Song, Canon Era, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff and Angst, I may chicken out of it, M/M, Or not, Period Typical Attitudes, Post Season 3, Second Chances, marriage pact
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:00:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28392792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeckyBubbles/pseuds/BeckyBubbles
Summary: Six years after Anne Shirley-Cuthbert left Avonlea, a tragedy sees her return to her hometown, and to the life of Gilbert Blythe, allowing her to explore what might have been one last time before she is to marry.**********Based on Ivy from Taylor Swift's latest album evermore.
Relationships: Gilbert Blythe & Anne Shirley, Gilbert Blythe/Anne Shirley, Royal "Roy" Gardner/Cole Mackenzie
Comments: 64
Kudos: 84





	1. Prologue: What would he do if he found us out?

**Author's Note:**

> Hello there!
> 
> Let me begin by thanking all that is good in the world for Taylor Swift. Just how would I have survived this year without her? 
> 
> Here is my tribute to 'Ivy', one of my holy grail tracks from Ms. Swift's latest release, evermore. 
> 
> This is just a little taster of the main action to come. Please don't be put off by the prologue lacking a substantial amount of Anne and Gilbert. It's a set up for the main body and this is a shirbert story.
> 
> *Disclaimer:* there is some period contextualised homophobia in this prologue. It is by no means my opinion on the subject. I want to make that very clear before we begin. 
> 
> “Love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love, cannot be killed or swept aside.”
> 
> Enjoy! x

_ To live in shadows is a most arduous task. _

_ Skulking through the greyness like a phantom and finding shelter in nooks and crannies cloaked in blackest night, dark obscurity allowing those polite society deem as unacceptable to live as their truest selves, away from prying eyes and salacious tongues that spread gossip faster than wildfire through gorse. _

_ But shadows are not shadows without light. _

_ And light comes to Cole Mackenzie in the form of Roy Gardner, his pale skin aglow, pearlescent in the silvery lustre of the moon as they walk side by side through the streets of Charlottetown. _

_ Cole has heard it said before that it is a sin to be like him, recalling so clearly the hard, wooden pews of the church in Avonlea, the morose incantation of the minister as he preached about Sodom and the unnatural acts committed by men there. Much of the text went over Cole’s head, his mind too young to understand what these unlawful acts could have been, but he understood one thing, the queasiness in his stomach telling him what he already knew. Cole is one of these sinners.  _

_ He has lived in shadows ever since. _

_ To be a sinner seems strange to Cole. To sin is to commit an act against God; something immoral and sacrilegious, although Cole never feels as though what he does is displeasing to God. _

_ In truth, the most religious experiences of his life have not been lived beneath the spire of a church, on bended knee as the minister’s voice floats above his head. _

_ No, Cole has never felt closer to God than when he is with Roy. When the world is awakening, a golden crack of dawn spilling through the drawn curtains in the upstairs bedroom they share, their skin slick with sweat and twisted in bedsheets, hazed from their heavenly experience and smoke from the cigarette caught between Roy’s lips. _

_ Cole is reborn beneath Roy’s touch, draws communion from his lips. He prays on knees before him, worshipping his body as an altar. _

_ And because the world does not understand something as pure, as sacred _ ,  _ as what they share, they find themselves plunged into darkness, two blackened figures camouflaged by the gloom. _

_ Yes, to live in shadows is an arduous task indeed. _

_ Sometimes, as people oft do, it’s all too easy to forget that they are a secret shrouded in gentlemen’s clothing. When Roy glows, as he does tonight, and the sultry intoxication of warm red wine stokes a fire deep within Cole, and what appears to be an accidental brush of fingertips to an unknowing eye is an unspoken message of want between the two men. A language only they can understand, as the nimble fingers of an artist meet the ink-stained hand of a writer.  _

_ Cole’s gaze rises to Roy, his coffee coloured eyes dark as he returns the look. Cole feels himself shiver. A furnace in his very centre explodes with a fresh wave of heat as more kindling is added to the blaze. _

_ Fingertips meet fingertips once more, the touch lingering this time, Cole casting a worried glance behind his shoulder, ensuring they are not being watched by unseen eyes. The street appears deserted, silent save for the drunken calls of the dockers who make merry over pints in the public house. _

_ Cole meets Roy’s eyes once more, both men stilling as they come to stand before the other. A thrill jolts through Cole, a shiver pulsing down his spine, because on nights like this, when the world seems deserted, all for them, he can imagine they aren’t sinners. _

_ They aren’t anything but Roy and Cole; the same as any other couple that promenade the streets of Charlottetown arm in arm, desperate for a moment of privacy. To feel lover’s lips against their own. _

_ Roy is wary as he raises a palm to rest upon Cole’s cheek. Cole can see a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes as his gaze darts around them, ensuring, for a second time, that they are alone. Satisfied that they are, he allows himself to stroke at skin, to feel the contours of Cole’s face beneath the pad of his thumb. _

_ It’s a delicate touch, and Cole is afraid to speak, the sound of his voice so loud that he would smash the glass bubble they find themselves in, so he doesn’t. Instead, emboldened by the red wine and the retreat from prying eyes, he allows his own hand to come up to cover Roy’s, his fingertips coming alive as they trace circles on Roy's skin. Write a secret message that only Roy can decode. _

I want you.

_ It doesn’t take Roy too long to understand it, and he surges forward, catching Cole’s lips in a forbidden kiss, the ferocity of it so strong it sends both men stumbling backwards into the shadow of a shallow alleyway, Cole groaning as Roy’s lips part his. He is intoxicated by the seductive scent of smoke and spirits and sensual sin. _

_ He twists his hands into the lapels of Roy’s overcoat, drawing him closer to him and feeling a twitch below his belt as Roy’s knee finds the crux of Cole’s legs, pinning him to the wall. His stubble is rough against Cole’s skin, his mouth hot as he smacks searing hot kisses along Cole’s cheek, his jaw, down his neck, Cole resting his head against the chilled brick behind him as Roy’s mouth explores the bulb in his throat. _

_ He hears himself moan. Pant. Whimper. _

_ His fingers thread through beetle black hair, and for a moment he forgets that they are in an alleyway. He forgets that they are man and man, and the world thinks that is something to be ashamed of. He forgets that they are anything but two souls so very much in love. _

_ But the thing about shadows is that people always feel the need to cast them in light. _

_ The heavy thud of boots is unheard to them; the two lovers locked together in an alley, but the cries of disgust aren’t. Loud, hollering voices hurling insults, calling them all they aren’t. _

_ “Perverts!” _

_ “Sick!” _

_ “Buggers!” _

_ They are wrenched apart, unseeing in their panic. In the bleakness of the night. _

_ And lips that once tasted of red wine and want flood with the metallic taste of blood as fists the size of rocks collide with fear-clenched jaws. _

_ With temples. _

_ Stomachs. _

_ The force of a punch sends Cole askew, careering backwards until he trips, falling against the cobblestones with a loud thud. A sticky darkness pools below him. _

_ He aches on two counts. _

_ And in the sliver of silver moonlight he sees figures luring above him, rounded, purple faces mutilated with rage and revulsion. _

_ He searches blindly for who he needs to see, but he can’t find him. His vision is too blurred, his blood riotous in his ears. _

_ His eyes grow heavy. _

_ There is a final blow. _

_ It’s sharp. His ribs. _

_ He tries to focus on the face above him. He thinks it looks familiar. _

_ But he is tired, weak. _

_ The world fades to black. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are you still here?
> 
> Okay, good! 
> 
> Firstly, this is written in (hopefully) present tense. An artistic decision that I have no substance for other than the fact that I liked how it read. The rest of the story will be in past tense because I'm comfy there, so please don't come at me over that, haha!
> 
> Secondly, you may have peeped a mature rating and smut tag? I'm trying to challenge my writing this year and push myself out of my comfort zone. That is the only way we grow, right? And because present tense scares me too much, I'm exploring smut. 
> 
> Yes, the logic is askew, but here we all are. 
> 
> Thirdly (and this will be it, I promise) I have not taken this subject matter on lightly. I have done my research on homophobia, in Canada specifically, at the turn of the century. The law at the time was Sodomy, however I did use the term "bugger" in this chapter, as in the context of the period, 'buggery' was the term for a homosexual act between two men before sodomy was adopted as law. I hope I am being respectful here. As I said, I did think very seriously on including this as a prologue. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this little taster. Perhaps you know the direction this story will take already.
> 
> If you did like it, please drop me a little kudos or comment. They are always so very lovely to read and I am grateful for every single one. 
> 
> Chapter titles are taken from the lyrics of 'Ivy' but I bet you knew that anyway! 
> 
> I'll be back with chapter one soon. Until then, come chat on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/chaos_in_calm) if you feel so inclined! 
> 
> Best wishes,  
> Becky x


	2. Chapter One: Where the spirit meets the bones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anne returns to Avonlea and confronts her past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all! 
> 
> Here is chapter one of this little fic for you.
> 
> It's a little artsy but I am feeling very ~inspired~ at the moment and decided to keep challenging my writing style! 
> 
> Big thank you to [Irina](https://archiveofourown.org/works/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&work_search%5Bquery%5D=Bruadarxch) for being a super wonderful godmother to this one and having an early read of it! Make sure to check out her page for more delicious shirbert content. 
> 
> Also, to my hammer chat girls who have to put up with me while I gripe, I LOVE YOU!
> 
> Alright, I know the prologue was lacking so please enjoy some shirbert.
> 
> I hope you like it x

_The room is cold._

_Anne frowns into it as she wakes, dragging the shawl from the back of her chair and wrapping it tightly around her. She leans closer to the slowly dimming flame from the stub of candle she has wedged into the candlestick on her desk, the wash of light upon the walls becoming smaller as the blackened wick curls towards the pooling wax._

_Gnarled figures appear on the walls around her, dark spectres looming where the light does not touch, and she blinks once. Hard. She rubs her eyes. She always had a knack for imagining what was not there._

_She stands, notes the curtains have not yet been drawn, the wicked chill of February invading her bedroom through the gaps in the panes of her window. She lifts the candle, moves to the window and reaches out for the thick wool that hangs there, pausing, just for a moment, to look beyond the glass._

_There is enchantment in the night. Anne always thought it was a time when spirits were most alive, when God and his angels listened closest to the sinners situated below them._

_Sinners did desperate things in the dark of night, did they not?_

_When the world went silent, they found themselves on knees, praying to someone in the sky, a distant star that listened in rapture to words spilling from murmuring lips._

_Anne remembers when she was only learning how to pray, thinking prayers would be heard better at night, away from the brass bedstead and out in a field or a garden, eyes closed as lips move soundlessly and she just feels a prayer. Sometimes, although she would never admit it to Marilla, that is still how she prays, when she finds herself alone in the garden and her mind is filled with ghosts from her past. Anne will still. She will sit back on her calves and close her eyes. And she will pray._

_She does it now, standing by the window, something sacred in how the street is awash with starlight, silver streaks reflecting back upon her from the houses of her neighbours. She smiles at the glittering dots that twinkle upon her from the Heavens, the sky so clear each one is visible against the velvet backdrop of night, illuminating the garden that sprawls below the sill of her window in an opalescent glow._

_It is a night that feels as though it has been woven with magic. A night that has the opportune feeling of fate rippling through the leaves with each gust of glorious February wind, whistling through the gaps in the glass and encircling her in its charm._

_But, of course, Fate is a fickle mistress, her ability to bring together a powerful thing._

_Her ability to tear apart even more so._

_The squealing of the gate as it clangs back against its post is what first alerts Anne that something is not right. A sickening sense of dread fills her from her toes to the tips of her ears. She swears she had bolted it as she arrived home earlier that day. It makes no sense that it is open now, swaying in the wind, the rusted metal wailing like a banshee as it twists to and fro._

_Squeak. Clang._

_Squeak. Clang._

_Squeak. Clang._

_Bang._

_A singular, laboured thud falls upon the door._

**********

Anne recalled reading a story where sanctuary was found beneath the turrets of a great cathedral.

It had been years since she’d read it, but even now she remembered the man the world viewed as a monster, recoiling in disgust at something they did not understand. She recollected how a woman stood on the steps of the church and claimed sanctuary, being brought into the safety of great, vaulted ceilings and clanging bells.

But Anne would never find sanctuary beneath the eyes of Notre Dame. She would never find sanctuary in the church of Avonlea; the minister spouting words of faith in a voice so ingenuine Anne imagined he barely believed them himself.

No, there was only one place Anne would ever feel safe, and to return to it felt akin to magic.

To leave was to be faced with endless possibility and adventure. Anne's six years away from her childhood bedroom in the green accented farmhouse she felt safest in saw her excel in her academic studies and fulfil her aspiration to teach, taking a position as school mistress in a ragged school in Charlottetown, the grubby faces staring back at her each morning sharing roots as humble as her own. And she loved to be there, in her classroom watching as frowns melted from faces, a little soul brimming with self-belief. She enjoyed nothing more than when her hands were coated in a fine layer of chalk dust and the children ran to greet her each morning as she walked the path to her single-story schoolhouse.

She revelled in the sense of freedom she had running her own home, she and Diana sharing the rent of a cottage situated on the curve of a street, with a little garden of their own that Anne filled with fresh herbs and flowers, her nails blackened with earth.

But to come home was to be swaddled in security; wrapped beneath the pale sheets and crocheted blanket she had found herself hidden under countless times before, when Diana was wrenched from her heart by the overbearing Mrs Barry, or she had made the mishap of dying her most beloved crown of red hair green.

Anne had always drawn peace from the familiarity of her surroundings as she peered through the window of the carriage that trundled slowly over the uneven earth that rutted under its wheels.

The carriage moved through the White Way of Delight, bare branches budding with tender green heads, ready to unfurl into blooms as white as winter snow and as delicate as the lace of a bridal veil once the February frost had subsided, bringing forth the abundance of spring. And just around the bend was the thicket of trees that bordered the haunted woods, looming as tall and as spindly as Anne remembered, twigs twisting like the gnarled fingers of a phantom, Anne recalling how she once imagined them came alive, snagging on her clothes in an attempt to drag her below the earth into the fiery pits they grew from.

At the dip in the road she would come across the Lynde’s house, Anne certain Mrs Rachel Lynde had selected that very spot to build upon as it was situated at the entrance to town, no soul passing it, in or out, going undetected by the beady eyes that peered from behind the pane of the parlour window, or from their stoop upon the porch.

She passed the Lake of Shining Waters, glistening under the pale light of morning as it had the first day she had laid eyes upon it, and soon she would come upon the path to the Barrys’ house, branching to the right at the fork in the road while Anne continued left, the carriage drawing up over the crest of the hill towards Green Gables.

Anne wondered at how somewhere could remain so unchanged. How each rock on the roadside was exactly where she had last seen it, an immovable landmark on the map of Avonlea. How she could remember each rut in the road as the carriage swayed over them, her stomach dipping, as it always did, at the familiar sensation. How, despite her departure six years previously, only returning for a fleeting weekend when a lace edged card landed on her doorstep announcing another marriage between peers she used to sit amongst in the old schoolhouse, or Marilla wrote to her with a death notice, Avonlea still sang to her like a siren, Anne not realising how much she missed it until she felt its rough red earth beneath the sole of her boot.

On a usual visit home Anne would have spent an afternoon being reacquainted with Butterscotch and the newest calf birthed on the farm. She would have called in on Ruby, the new Mrs Spurgeon MacPherson, and then the recently widowed Mrs Lynde, before stopping by Ms. Stacy’s stone cottage for tea, sharing stories of the antics they witnessed from the front of the classroom. She would sit with Matthew and Marilla by the fire, reading aloud as Matthew polished his boots and Marilla darned a sock, both sharing smiles from where they sat at opposite ends of the hearth, relishing in having their Anne home, if only for a fleeting moment, before she disappeared once more to fulfil her ambitions.

On a usual visit home, Anne would sit in church on Sundays and converse with the minister afterwards, exchanging pleasantries with the newly wed Charlie Sloane and his bride, a pretty girl with a honking laugh. She would lean on the fence, as she had as a child, and call to Jerry across the field, waving a hand overhead. And, after Mrs Baynard came into existence, she would coo over their baby, a plump, round-faced boy who was soon followed by a sister. She would wander to the edge of the Blythe-Lacroix farm, only when she was reassured by the gossiping lips of Mrs Lynde that _he_ had not returned for another holiday, and there she would meet Bash and cradle Delphine in her arms, the little girl growing so tall Anne could no longer swing her into the air, drawing a girlish chuckle from the child’s lips.

But this was not a usual visit home.

Anne glanced down, taking in her own appearance and readying herself for a berating from Marilla when they eventually rounded the path to the porch of Green Gables. She had left Charlottetown in a hurry, still clad in her nightgown, the cream cotton streaked in rust coloured patches; Anne wrapped in a greatcoat that was much too large for her, her bare feet thrust into unlaced boots.

But she had no care for her appearance.

They had to escape, she and her fiancé. They had to get as far from Charlottetown as they possibly could.

She watched him now, reclined against the leather seat opposite her, his head rocking with each sway of the vestibule, a rattle to his chest with every breath he drew. Anne hoped that Diana had followed the instructions she had given in haste as she packed for their trip.

“Wake the postmaster and order him to get a telegram to Marilla. I am coming home and I am bringing my fiancé. She must alert the doctor as soon as she can to be ready for when we arrive. Then contact the schoolmaster. Inform him that a family member has taken sick and it was imperative I returned home. And, Diana?”

Diana had looked up at the detectable shift in the tone of Anne's voice.

“Be careful.”

Anne had found herself bundled into the vestibule of a carriage, the streets of Charlottetown, worn smooth by ceaseless hooves and trampling feet, transforming into the wild, rough earth of rustic Prince Edward Island.

When Anne returned to Charlottetown, she would return as a married woman.

Fiancé was an odd term to Anne. Unfamiliar.

She had once hoped to be a bride, remembering the little girl with large ideas on love who had dreamt of having her moment in white.

_Something old, something new. Something borrowed, something blue. And a silver sixpence in her shoe._

She remembered the doe-eyed child who lay on her back on hazy summer afternoons, picturing herself walking the aisle of the church, drawing enamoured gasps from the congregation as she passed them, lace frilled around her neck and a gauzy veil upon her head, Ruby and Diana following behind in pretty frocks with puffed sleeves, bunches of wild begonias in their hands. And just how _darling_ they would look in pale pink.

But the porcelain of Anne’s hope smashed against stone on the day she received the news that Gilbert Blythe had not gone to Paris. He had chosen to study in Toronto. Even unattached, he had not chosen her.

That day, as she wept silently on the shoulder of Diana, her bosom friend’s hand smoothing hair back from her temples, she had decided she would never be a bride, because to love was to lose, and Anne had lost too much to bear the weight of another heartache.

But even that Anne would approve of the match she had made and the hasty wedding that was to be planned during her stay.

Anne felt a gentle smile curve her lips as he began to stir, blue eyes blinking open and squinting into the weak light, dust mites floating through the air in a waltz as they were caught in a streak of sun. He tried to turn, to reposition himself against the leather but he was gripped by a pain. His hand clutched at his chest as his face distorted with a grimace.

“Easy,” Anne soothed, surging forward to kneel in the gap beneath the seats. She took his hand in her own, raising it to her lips as she pressed a kiss as gentle as a butterfly to his skin. “You'll injure yourself further if you're too hasty.”

He nodded, allowing his head to fall back against the seat. 

“Are we much further?” he asked.

Anne shook her head in response.

“Just a few more moments.” 

She lifted her hand to his forehead, pushing his matted hair back to expose more of his delicate, handsome face, almost unrecognisable to Anne now. 

He closed his eyes, taking comfort from her touch and Anne felt herself flood with worry at the sound of the wheeze in his chest, a pained grunt from his lips as he exhaled. He was trying to swallow it and be brave, but Anne couldn’t be fooled by his display of bravery. His nuances were second nature to Anne. She knew all she had to know about him and was all too familiar with how he hid pain, eyes screwed shut, just for a moment, to disguise his wince of anguish.

Anne had little medical experience in her twenty-two years. Most of what she did know she had learnt from old wives’ tales passed to her during her time in service with the Hammonds, but she could hear how laboured his breath was. She could see how deep the ragged gash on his skull ran, a glimpse of white of bone visible in the crevice that exposed mutilated flesh, ripped at as though it had been feasted upon by Nosferatu himself.

And it may have been an aimless task, Anne unsure if the great God in Heaven was even there, for if he was then _how_ could he have let this happen, but she found herself clasping at his hands, laying her forehead low, resting by his hip, and praying.

“Dear Lord,” she whispered into the stale atmosphere of the cabin. “Please lay your healing hands on him. Protect him today and every day, as he recovers from this most baneful of sins.”

There was a rasp, a hacking cough, followed by a low, spiteful laugh. Anne raised her head, her eyes wide with curiosity as her fiancé took her under his gaze, eyes that were once innocent, beautiful even, now encircled in yellow and deep brown, the skin becoming more and more blackened with bruises with each hour that passed.

“I don't believe he's listening, Anne,” he said. His statement was plain, a sorrowful timbre to his once timid voice. He turned his head from her, fixing his eyes on the felted roof above them.

Anne was silenced by his words, the prayer dying on her lips at his sudden vitriol.

Anne had not always prayed to God. As she grew, she had found reverence in volumes of books, worshipping the written word as it was her only form of escape from harsh reality. But through her hardships, the sting of a belt or the lash of a tongue, she had always believed there was someone above her. A distant star in the sky that kept watch upon her.

Stories had told her that was a fairy godmother. Marilla said it was God. Her heart told her it was her parents, and not until she was a speck in the highest of Heavens herself, would she ever know the truth; which watchful gaze lingered over her as she beat out her path.

So, she prayed to the living instead, and grieved for the man who lay before her.

Anne bowed her head once more, joining her hands in the semblance of worship and raising them to her lips. 

“ _Please_ , Diana. Please let your message reach home.”

A quick step from beyond the felted confines of their cabin told her that it had, the horseshoe that fastened the gate lifting with a click as it swung open allowing them to pass through, the old wood creaking at the action. The carriage rounded to the house.

“Anne,” came a call from the steps, Anne leaping from the carriage when it drew to a halt. She raced into the arms of Marilla, her hands coming up to Anne's wild hair, pushing red strands back from her forehead and pressing a kiss to her skin, holding her in her embrace.

“Good Heavens, child, what has happened?” Marilla pressed, an urgency to her voice as Anne led her to the carriage, their driver disembarking to remove the cases they had filled in haste and fastened to the back with large leather straps. “We received a message early this morning to ready a room. I didn't even realise you were affianced and I…”

She stilled when her eyes found the man concealed in the shadow of the carriage, her skin blanching a pale white.

“Oh, dear God.”

“Where is Matthew?” Anne asked. “We must move him.”

Marilla nodded, stumbling a step backwards as she turned her head toward the barn to the west of the house.

“Matthew!” she cried, her voice high and hysterical. 

It drew the man from his dim sanctuary straight away, his face stricken as he spotted Anne, streaked in blood and half-dressed for the biting weather. He took off at a run, a slow, clumsy jog toward the pair on the path. Jerry appeared behind him, distracted from his work by the commotion, coming upon them in seven long strides.

The men recoiled at the figure in the carriage, Mathew’s brow furrowing as something about the boy struck him as familiar, although he couldn’t be sure. The skin was too swollen, too purpled. His mouth was warped by an angry laceration and congealed in sticky blood. He felt a hand at his arm, pushing him towards the lower barn.

“Ready Butterscotch and fetch the doctor,” Marilla ordered.

Matthew drew his eyes away from the grotesque sight, grunting his answer before hurrying away. The clinking of buckles was audible from the barn as he saddled the horse.

Marilla turned to Jerry, ordering him to climb into the cabin and aid Anne with removing the boy from the back seat. Jerry did as he was bid, crouching beside Anne on the floor as they attempted to raise the figure into a seated position, his jaw clenching as he groaned, catching his cry between his teeth.

“Hush, now,” Anne soothed, ducking her head to stare into his eyes, the pale blue the only part of him still identifiable. “It will be over soon.”

He nodded, grimacing as he allowed them to hoist him to his feet. His knees gave way beneath his own weight. Anne caught him on one side, Jerry on the other, and they dragged him to the entrance, Anne scrambling back to the ground before she and Marilla took his legs and lowered him from the carriage. They took up position on either side of him once more, leading him to the house.

Anne glanced over her shoulder as they stumbled to the porch, wondering how long it would be before Matthew returned with the doctor. Carmody was a fair distance, a little under an hour for a round-trip if Matthew travelled at a gallop the whole way. She questioned if the doctor would even arrive. What if news had followed them, reaching the country before they were able to? The doctor was known for his biases, often reluctant to help those around him: some journeys too long to make, some skin too black, some pockets too poor to afford his fee. Anne hoped he would arrive today.

Marilla distracted her with her fussing.

“Easy,” she intoned as Anne and Jerry stepped precariously onto the porch, hoisting a dead weight between them. Anne felt her forehead break into a sweat with the strain of worry and a weight she was not strong enough to shoulder. “Easy, now. Watch your step.”

They made it to the kitchen before they stumbled across their next obstacle, Marilla righting chairs below the table to clear a path that led to the staircase. They would never be able to manage it, the body dangling limply between them.

“We’ll have to place him in Matthew’s room,” Marilla decided, and so they did, lowering Anne’s fiancé onto his back amongst Matthew’s flattened pillows and horsehair blankets.

The room smelt heavy, the heady smell of a man who worked hard mingling with the coppery tinge of deep, drying blood. Anne strode to the window and thrust it open, allowing the fresh scent of frost and February to enter, dispelling the smell of near death from around them. She was thankful that Matthew’s room was on the lower floor, on the side of the house that does not get sun in the mornings. Anne remembered hearing that bright light could be aggravating to those who had injured their eyes. She made a mental note to enquire upon the doctor if that was true.

She hurried back to the bed, dismissing Jerry who lingered uneasily, eyeing the corpse-like figure they had laid out, before she plumped the pillows behind him in an attempt to make him more comfortable. He raised a hand to her, stroked his thumb against her cheek, his smile watery, more like a wince. Anne’s hand covered his, holding him to her.

“Thank you for this, my darling girl.”

She dropped to the bed beside him, leaning forward to rest her forehead against his. Anne’s heart filled with love for the broken man before her.

Broken by fists but not quite by spirit.

Soon he slept.

When Anne was satisfied that he felt no pain in his slumber, she dragged a wobbling chair from across the room and set it by the bed, settling into it. Marilla entered with a cup of hot, sweet tea. Anne took it gratefully, only realising as she paused, feeling the liquid warm her, how tired she was. Her eyes stung with sleep deprivation and tears adrenalin did not allow her to shed.

Marilla stopped by her, pushing sweat thickened hair back from Anne’s face, tucking it behind her ears. She took her chin between her fingers and tilted Anne’s head upwards, a interrogative look to her eyes as she peered at her. Anne saw a question she had already thought of an answer to forming before Marilla was able to verbalise it.

She dropped her gaze from Marilla, closing her eyes in fear that the truth would be detected behind the blue there, as the words she had anticipated floated above her, tinged with the very note of disappointment she imagined they would be said with.

“When were we to find out you are engaged to be married?” Marilla asked.

Anne licked her lips, feeling the skin cracked beneath her tongue.

“It is only a recent engagement,” she replied, her eyes finding the boy on the bed. A hand wove with his. “I was going to tell you on my next visit. It was to be a surprise.”

Marilla pursed her lips, her eyes squinting as she scrutinised Anne. Anne felt as though she was a book being opened, browsed through, Marilla reading each page with the analytical mind of a literary professor.

“And when is to be the happy day?” she asked eventually, Anne’s mind scrambling to conjure an answer that would satisfy her. 

Truthfully, Anne didn’t know when she was to be wed. It was to be soon, when her husband-to-be recovered from the injuries he had sustained and they could return to Charlottetown as man and wife. It was imperative that they were married before she returned to the cottage and the schoolhouse. Too much was at stake. It was hard to remain respectful in a city that ripped through reputations like a scythe.

She lifted her head, shrugging her shoulders. “We would like it to be quick. As soon as he is able.”

Marilla sucked in a sharp breath, her brow furrowing as she mused on Anne's answer.

“And is there any particular reason why this wedding is to be hurried?”

Anne puzzled at the question.

 _Yes,_ she wished to say. If the cold clink of cuffs could be avoided she would marry him in the morning. The flicker of Marilla's eyes to her stomach drenched her in embarrassed understanding. Her hands found the flesh of her belly beneath her nightgown as her cheeks grew hot.

“Of course not, Marilla,” she insisted, feeling her cheeks hot. A flush snaked up her neck.

“Anne, I am not so green as you may think,” Marilla replied, fixing Anne with a serious look. “I know about the urges of young people. If you are in trouble, you must let me know.”

“Marilla, I promise you,” Anne urged, her hands clasping at the cotton of her dress. “We have our reasons but it’s not _that.”_

She was silenced by the clop of hooves, the steady rhythm of metal shoes against packed earth as the animals were driven forward, stopping short of the porch.

Anne frowned, glancing to the door. She went to stand, confused at how the doctor could be here already. It was too soon, Carmody too far.

Marilla’s steps were clipped as she paced across the scrubbed floorboards to the doorway, the sound of male voices nearing.

Anne had the odd sensation she felt when she opened a book she had read already, squinting at the words as they appeared before her in a pattern she should not anticipate but does, before she laughs, realising she has read it before and allowing herself to indulge in the feeling of paper already crinkled by her finger-tips, words already absorbed by her.

She was enshrouded by familiarity, a deep velvetiness to the tone that sent her careering backwards to a classroom and a boy with brown curls who watched her with hopeful eyes, something akin to lightning striking Anne in the chest, a new feeling piercing at her soul as he spoke.

_“So…you’re suggesting I – post?”_

She felt the room around her shift, tilt on its side, transforming into somewhere new. The bed became a table, cream coloured parchment printed with futures slapped upon it under the hand of her teacher. The chair on which she sat was the patch she stood upon, her eyes darting across the room towards the hearth: pots and pans, spoons and ladles hanging from it by hooks.

“In here, Doctor.”

Anne’s eyes darted to the doorway.

Was that the last time she had heard him speak, the day they received their results, Anne’s hand outstretched as she came to stand before him?

The grip of panic took Anne in its clutches. She collapsed back against her seat with a thud as the door opened.

Blue eyes met warm hazel as they had done the day she approached him in the schoolhouse, requesting he post a take notice for Ruby. The day Anne felt something in her alter, the unknown feelings she so often had when she neared him illuminated by a fork of recognition.

Once, when Anne was little, a great storm had raged. Mr Hammond had forgotten to fasten the gate to the pen that confined the old mare and the animal fretted as the sky rumbled above her. Anne was frightened, quaking as Mrs Hammond ordered her into the storm to fasten the gate. Anne paled as a great fork of lightning flashed before her, the earth blackened where it struck.

“Stupid girl” Mrs Hammond had cried. “Don’t you know lightning never strikes the same place twice.”

Anne knew that now to be untrue. 

**********

To love was a mystery to Anne.

She had read enough about it to know it could come to people in all forms. Love could be painful; persevering. It could be the listening ear of a most treasured friend, or the goodnight kiss of a parent as they tucked into beds the children in their care. It could be between a brother and sister, a bond much deeper than bloodline. Love could be quick, a hasty burst of flame that burns to nothing in a matter of weeks. It could be slow, creeping to one’s side like an old friend, something gentle and timid but more beautiful than a golden hearted rose.

In her twenty-two years of being Anne, Anne had learnt about many different types of love and felt her own heart stir with tender feelings for the people who had come into her life.

She loved Matthew and Marilla, an unfaltering love that would never diminish. She loved Ruby and Cole, her very dearest Diana. She had loved Aunt Jo in the way she felt she would love a grandparent, seeking wisdom at the old woman’s feet. She even loved the formidable Mrs Lynde.

But she had never again felt love like the love she felt for Gilbert Blythe.

She could remember the schoolgirl she had been, hair twisted into two thick braids, watching him with curiosity and never quite understanding what the look in his eyes meant. She recalled the soul-crushing feeling of seeing him court another at the County Fair, at hearing he was to marry, and she remembered the spiteful venom she felt when he ignored her letter. The hope that it may have all been a mistake. But mostly, she remembered the sorrow of losing him. She sometimes nursed it still.

But there was another type of love that Anne had heard of, a patient type that clung to the rocks of life like ivy, twisting taller and taller with each passing year, growing in spite of bitter frosts and winter snows, and endless years of neglect.

Anne swallowed, dropping her gaze from the doctor, her old school friend, who stood at the opposite end of the bed, his brow furrowed as he stooped over a basin she had brought him, scrubbing his hands clean of blood with a bar of soap, paying attention to below his nails. She wondered if he was concentrating because he felt this a most particular task, or if it was to stop himself from looking at her, his eyes barely able to meet hers since he had appeared at the threshold of the bedroom door.

She had stood, when he arrived, rising to her feet and drawing the coat she wore across her self-consciously, covering her state of undress as a blush heated her cheeks. Whether he noticed, however, she wasn’t sure. He stood silent, his eyes flickering, just once, from her crown of flame red hair to her boots, and he nodded a single nod.

“Hello, Anne.”

Anne had felt something stir within her when he said her name, the sound of it like a psalm she thought she had forgotten but was able to recall all the words to when the minister began singing during service. It was a single syllable, curt and plain, but she could feel something shifting within her like an avalanche, swelling beneath the surface of her waters. She couldn’t let her mind say what she thought it might be.

“Hello, doctor.”

His face had worn a strange look when she called him by his title, his head jerking backwards slightly, splendid chin dipping towards the collar of his shirt as something flickered across his expression. There was a slight furrow to the centre of his forehead. His mouth set into a firm line.

“How are you?” she’d pressed, the noiseless room suffocating her.

He had nodded his head curtly. “Very well, thank you. And how is the patient?”

Anne had watched his methodical hands, hands that once cradled hers in a merry, magical dance and were now practical tools to his trade, as he wet gauze with alcohol and held it against sliced skin. She’d watched as he smoothed honey over lacerations, scalded a needle beneath boiled water and sewn shut a gash with neat, precise stitches. He had been meticulous in his care, soothing words spilling from his lips as the room filled with pained moans, his hands gentle as he pressed an anguished body back against the bed.

“Easy, now. You’re doing brilliantly. Close your eyes and count to ten.”

He’d helped Anne strip a shirt from a punctured torso, tutting at the damage underneath but not asking any questions. Instead, he’d delved into the medical bag he carried, pulling from it a stethoscope and placing the cool, flat end against the skin. Anne held her breath as he listened to laboured breathing.

“Well?” she’d asked. Gilbert had straightened, frowning a moment before pressing gentle fingertips into flesh to feel for damage beneath.

“I believe he’s fractured a rib.” 

His words were plain, straight-to-the-point, but they were said in a way that felt like a cushion, softened the blow of the diagnosis. Anne wondered if his younger self would still be angry that he had not yet mastered a dispassionate delivery. 

“If the swelling is anything to go by. There’s not too much I can do, unfortunately. The bone will have to heal itself.”

Anne nodded as he spoke, watching as he delved into his bag and drew a small vial from it.

“Give him this; just a little every morning. It doesn’t taste too pleasant so slip it into tea.” 

His mouth quirked as his eyes met hers in a fleeting glance, their fingertips brushing just slightly as Anne stretched across the bed to take the bottle from him. She felt a tingle at the touch of his skin, feeling foolish for how it travelled up her arm. This was possibly the most unromantic situation one could find themselves in, a bloodied fiancé lying between her and a boy from her past that awakened something in her like a lark’s song in spring.

But then again, everything felt like it had been brushed with romance when she found herself with Gilbert.

“His breathing is going to be affected for some time,” he continued. “Encourage him to cough. That will clear anything trapped in his lungs. Six more weeks and he’ll be as right as rain.”

Anne nodded, feeling herself shrink like the dutiful bride at the side of her beloved. She glanced at the figure on the bed, resting now, his bruised eyes closed as he slept. She felt a weight upon herself, knowing it was Gilbert’s gaze.

He’d taken his time as he readied himself to leave, slowly putting his supplies away: the stethoscope he had used, glass bottles with labels of concoctions that were as unfamiliar to Anne as German, needles he had sterilised below the faucet. Anne felt compelled to offer him tea. He shook his head, telling her he had house calls that needed to be made now the afternoon was approaching. Instead, he had requested a basin, somewhere to wash his hands.

She leant back in her seat, drawing the coat she still wore closer to herself as Gilbert took a rough towel in his hands and dried them. Her eyes trailed his figure, searching for alterations in him since she had seen him last. He seemed almost unchanged from the boy she had shared a classroom with.

He was still tall, although - Anne squinted her eyes – perhaps _slightly_ taller than she remembered him, and his shoulders had broadened, his frame filling out although he remained slender. His eyes were still warm and inquisitive, and if he did smile, it was teasing, his mouth twisting in that way that made her stomach awaken with wings. His hair was still unruly, a wild mop of curls the colour of the forest floor. Anne longed to touch them, to feel their softness below her fingertips.

But something had changed. Something in the way he held himself, his carriage straighter and his shoulders relaxed; a kind of quiet confidence that made Anne brim with pride. 

When Anne had last been with Gilbert Blythe, in the kitchen of Ms. Stacy’s cottage, he had been a boy with big dreams of being a doctor. He was sometimes doubtful, unsure and confused, but now he stood before her as a man of twenty-four and Anne was struck with what she had always known.

“I knew you would make a wonderful doctor.”

His head rose sharply with her words, his eyes locking to Anne’s as his features softened. She smiled a tight-lipped smile as he opened his mouth to speak.

“Anne…”

“Stop. I _won’t_ hear any modesty from you.”

He laughed a low warm chuckle, eyes glancing towards the figure on the bed to ensure they hadn’t roused him. Anne felt as though they were school children once more, the easy trust that came so naturally to a child when they met a new playmate. She glanced towards her hands.

“I think the only person who didn’t believe in your ability was yourself.” 

She found him watching her with the same expression he had worn on the day he had to deliver a death sentence to Mary. A look of quiet awe. 

“I’m really proud of you, Doctor Blythe.”

Her mouth quirked with a small smile that he returned, tugging slightly at the corner of his lips. There was a squeaking of springs and Gilbert dropped his gaze, snapping his bag shut.

“And what of you?” he asked. “You’re now a schoolteacher?” 

He worded the question as though he didn’t already know. Anne answered similarly.

“I am indeed. Mistress to thirty-two of the most _badly_ behaved children I have ever come across.” She heard him chuckle. She did too. “But enjoying every single moment of it.”

“I don’t envy you. I imagine Ms. Stacy wished to tear her hair out over us sometimes.”

“Not so much you or me,” Anne quipped, leaning forward with a conspiratorial smile. “But, perhaps…”

“Moody,” they chorused and Anne chuckled, Gilbert’s cheeks rounding with mirth as he pressed a finger to his lips.

“Shh,” he hushed, eyes falling to the bed as his shoulders shook with quiet laughter.

Anne sighed when her laughter subsided, thinking on the little faces that watched her from behind inkwells and slates.

“It is the most wonderful job in the world though,” she reflected. Her eyes rose from the floor to see him watch her, a tender smile play upon his lips. “There are moments I wish to knock their skulls together, of course, but there is nothing as truly _fulfilling_ as seeing a little mind understand something for the very first time.”

“I’m sure the children of Charlottetown are very lucky to have you.”

“Oh, they like me well enough, but I feel I am _much_ luckier to have them.”

“It seems you’ve found your passion.”

“I have.”

“And…” He swallowed, his mouth twisting around the words like they were poison he had been forced to swallow. “You’re to be married?”

His face lifted to her, holding her in his gaze as her heartbeat quickened. His eyes appeared to her like Hades, a screaming soul swirling in the depths of dark hazel, behind shadowy irises. She wondered if this meant she was dead.

His shoulders dropped as her head bobbed reluctantly.

He nodded, his mouth twisting into a strange, strangled smile. “Congratulations.”

_Congratulations._

It rang familiar, Anne’s forehead creasing as she realised it was the final thing he had said to her before they had gone their separate ways, Anne staring hopefully into his face, wishing he would remark on her letter. The letter he never responded to.

She suddenly felt angry, an ice bath tossed over her at the pained look to his eyes. He was not the one who had offered a pink candy heart only for it to be crushed beneath the heel of a boot.

He lifted his hat and placed it on his head, hoisting the medical bag from the mattress.

“Goodbye, Anne.”

Anne didn’t say anything, watching soundlessly as he stepped across the floorboards to the door, his hand falling to the handle as he raised his head to her.

“You know,” he said, Anne feeling the terrifying sensation of a train racing off a track, wishing it would slow, dreading the impact when the carriage eventually toppled side-ways.

“I think I always knew that you would marry him.”

The door opened and the doctor disappeared behind it. Anne sank back in her seat. She closed her eyes. She willed the six-year ache inside her to go away.

Sadness was a mystery to Anne.

She had enough hardships of her own to know it could present in many forms. Sadness could be wailing and tears. It could be the weeping of a child when they had been punished by a parent, shoulders shaking with sobs as they hid beneath their quilts. It could be despairing, standing on the edge of a precipice and willing the wind to take you so you didn’t have to leap. It could be grief, wishing yourself death to save another. It could be the silent aching of a heart, hidden behind a smile.

In her short life, Anne had known her share of sadness.

She could remember how she wept when Marilla intended to send her back to the asylum, or the hot tears she had when she squeezed her eyes shut, holding the Hammond children to her chest as she sang soothingly, attempting to smother the sounds of their mother’s screams from the next room. She still grieved for her parents, for Mary and Aunt Jo.

But this sadness - this sadness was the worst Anne had ever felt. The heart-wrenching type of sadness that didn’t see tears spill or feel that harsh flare of anger. It was the type of sadness in which nothing presented. When eyes looked but didn’t see, and ears listened but didn’t hear, and the world was nothing but a blur. Anne’s heart beating despite feeling as though it had died; it’s rhythm diminishing with every pained thump.

There had been a time before when she wept for Gilbert, late in the night when the house was silent, when Diana crept across the room they shared and cradled Anne close in her bed, whispering comforting words to her. She thought of him on Saturdays when suitors began to call, or in the autumn when crisp apples weighed boughs and she was reminded of the very first day she had met him. She had despaired at the start, but despair simmered to sorrow, and sorrow into a dull ache. She ached silently ever since.

She was unsure how long she had sat for, eyes closed in the wooden chair by the bed, until the spindles pressed uncomfortably into her spine. She imagined they had marked her, willed herself to cry over it, but no tears came.

“Anne?”

Anne lifted her head, spying Marilla watching her in the doorway. “Rachel has arrived. I’m sure she would like to see you.”

Anne nodded. She glanced back to the man on the bed before making her way to the kitchen where Rachel Lynde stood, arms wide for Anne to walk into, enveloping her in a suffocating hug.

“I looked through the window this morning and I thought to myself, _Thomas, dear, there is a carriage passing that looks much like the late Ms. Josephine Barry’s. William Barry will be much anguished if the ghost of his aunt appears upon his doorstep.”_

“And just _what_ a surprise it was when I was bringing flowers to my dear Thomas and came across Jerry Baynard telling me you had returned home this very morning, with a _fiancé,_ no less. I believed myself frozen to the very spot.”

Anne nodded as Rachel released her from her embrace, dropping her rounded body into a chair and tapping impatiently at the table as Marilla prepared tea. 

“ _A fiancé?_ I asked him and he said, _Why yes, Mrs Lynde. A name I think you may know._ Well, I dare say I was flabbergasted. I _never_ thought of you as a match.”

Anne smiled sweetly as she sipped at her tea. “I love him very dearly, Mrs Lynde.”

“Well, I dare say you do. For what is a marriage without love?”

Anne frowned at the sentiment.

The more she came to know of the world, the more she realised love and marriage were two entirely separate entities. Yes, some people were lucky to gain both, but not all were. Some people could have love, but were never allowed the comfort of marriage, and some had marriage but never felt love.

She thought of the newly wed Jane Andrews, her grand nuptials being what had last brought Anne home, and the boastful smile that curved Jane’s wide mouth as she beckoned her friends to her and spoke of her soon-to-be husband.

“He is _very_ wealthy,” she disclosed with a grin. “Father believes him to own a _motorcar._ Can you quite believe it? Imagine me sitting proudly in the seat of a motorcar.”

On the day Jane Andrews became Mrs Inglis, Anne wept. Not because she was aggrieved at Jane choosing security over all else. Jane was a beautiful fool and would never allow something as unimportant as a marriage lacking in love to bother her. No, Anne wept for the soul this marriage had splintered.

Anne recollected reading once that every soul had a half. She believed it was a book on ancient Asia she had uncovered at the library in Queens, a subject she had never read on before, and within its pages she uncovered traditions and beliefs that were alien to her. People, the book had told her, are sometimes only half a soul. They could survive singularly, of course, but were tethered to another by a sole string, invisible to the sceptical human eye. Heart and heart were bound together and Fate, in all her mastery, tried to help them meet. Anne liked to imagine, after absorbing this new information, that when souls found each other, the same string that tied them then weaved them together, keeping them from separating once more. She had wept for whoever was tethered to Jane Andrews’ soul.

“ _She is the most beautiful bride in Avonlea.”_

That was what Mrs Lynde had said as Mr and Mrs Inglis made their way from the church, happy crowds tossing flower petals at their feet. But Anne could not believe that to be true. There was beauty in Jane’s dress of delicate lace, and the brooch fastened at her neck; in the blooms that spilled from her arms. But there was no radiant glow of love, shining eyes filled with happy tears.

Anne held that sometimes marriage could be nothing more than a business contract. Love was not necessary, only tolerance. Tolerance and long pockets.

Yet she found herself humming in affirmation of what Mrs Lynde had said, the woman too tiresome to argue with. She shrank below the watchful gaze of Marilla who settled at her side.

“The wedding is to be soon, Rachel,” Marilla informed their guest in her brusque manner, pouring tea into three china cups. Mrs Lynde gasped at the news.

“How soon is it to be?” she questioned, wide eyes turning to Anne.

“Six weeks,” Anne answered. “If the doctor’s assumptions are correct.”

She swallowed as the image of Gilbert’s haunted eyes appeared in her head, as vivid as though he still stood across from her, eyeing her from the opposite end of the room.

“Oh my,” Mrs Lynde cried, fat fingers finding her bosom. Her voice dropped to a whisper as she leant across the table towards Anne. “Are we to hear the wailing of a babe in Green Gables soon?”

“ _No,”_ Anne cried, bristling at how this was the first assumption of all who had yet heard her news. She coloured, hoping Gilbert had not thought the same.

“Well, it seems a terrible rush,” Rachel harrumphed, straightening her back as she spoke, drawing herself to full height. “What else is one to think?”

Anne sighed, supposing she couldn’t argue with Mrs Lynde’s assessment. Although what happened between man and woman in a marriage bed was still a mystery to Anne, she had heard too many tales of women being caught before, a wailing infant in arm before a wedding band.

“We _want_ to be married quickly,” Anne explained. “There is no ulterior motive.”

Anne knew this to be a lie, but both women seemed satisfied by her answer, sipping their tea as Mrs Lynde listed all that was to be planned before Anne shed her title of Miss Shirley-Cuthbert and became someone new.

“We’ll have to alert the minister,” Mrs Lynde prattled. “And find fresh flowers. That will be tricky now, Marilla, as everything is dead with the winter. And I have some lace that will make a _fine_ dress.”

Anne listened dutifully as Mrs Lynde spoke, thinking on how one day could need so much preparation; the planning so particular for something that passed in a matter of minutes.

“I’ll call upon the minister tomorrow,” Anne decided. “Early before church. I daresay I should tell Ruby the news myself before she hears it from someone else.”

**********

“Anne, I was quite aghast when I heard the news,” Ruby cried as Anne was led up the narrow, tiled hallway and into the parlour of the minister’s house.

It was a quaint little homestead, Anne seeing Ruby in each detail of it, lace frills over the arms of the chairs and doilies placed beneath the teapot arranged on the tray before them.

“When Mrs Lynde came to call yesterday afternoon I cried with glee. You sly fox, you! Well, you certainly have landed on your feet!”

Anne smiled at Ruby’s excitable chatter, pondering on why people always thought a match more appropriate if one would come into wealth when marriage vows were made. Anne had little care for the house bequeathed to her husband-to-be by his benefactress. She cared for the shadows of the stories that lived beneath its roof, but not for the brick and mortar it had been built with. She cared for the image of two women settled proudly on the mantle, but not the money that paid for the portrait to be made. She knew her fiancé did not either.

“How peculiar that we have all sat together and not one of us could have imagined this match. Moody was almost winded when he heard! He was always such a _strange_ sort.” Ruby paused as Anne huffed a surprised laugh, coughing slightly as her tea caught at the back of her throat. “But I am certain he is _most_ becoming now. A proper gentleman.”

Ruby concluded with a sweet smile and Anne was struck at how girlish she still appeared to be, her cheeks as round and pink as they were the day Anne had become acquainted with Ruby. Her eyes innocent and wide, blinking at Anne like she was a child making sense of the world, glistening in wonderment.

Ruby had been a young bride, a bought of ill health seeing her and Moody marry hastily at her bedside, the predecessor of Moody performing their ceremony in the gloomy upstairs bedroom of Ruby’s childhood home. Few recovered from consumption, the diagnosis akin to a death sentence, and the people of Avonlea prepared for the worst. But Ruby’s spirit was unbroken, and like the creeping of dawn over the hills, sending nightfall scurrying back into the shadows, the blackness that ate at her lungs cleared.

They had relocated to the cottage when she was strong enough to do so and had remained there since, Ruby treating everyday like a childhood game of house, her the doting wife, preparing Moody’s suits each morning and sending him into his parish with a kiss. Anne wished Ruby remained as innocent forever.

“How Jane Andrews will scowl when she hears. The Manse is a large property, is it not?” Anne nodded in response as Ruby clapped her hands, a charming giggle honeying her voice. “And there she thought the rest of us would all end up lowly housemaids. _Especially_ you, Anne.”

Anne raised her eyebrow in a question.

“No offence.”

Ruby lifted a plate filled with biscuits and offered it to Anne who shook her head. “No, thank you.”

“Suit yourself.”

Ruby took a slab of lemon shortbread from among the selection and nibbled at it gingerly.

“You know, I have the most peculiar feeling at the moment of being so tremendously hungry all the time, yet so ill when I do eat.”

“How strange,” Anne puzzled, taking another sip of her rapidly cooling tea. “Are you feeling worried by anything?”

Ruby beamed, the apples of her cheeks swelling with her smile, baby blue eyes dancing with delight. She leant forward, casting a glance around her as though the room was occupied by the straining ears of others, heads cocked to pry on their conversation.

“I have a secret, Anne,” she whispered excitedly. “But you cannot tell a soul.”

Anne lifted her hand between them, proffering her pinkie finger towards her friend, Ruby curling it with her own.

“I promise,” Anne vowed.

“Moody and I, well, we are to be…”

A knock on the door interrupted Ruby’s confession and she snapped upright, her face splitting in a grin as she turned towards Anne.

“Why, that must be the doctor now!”

Anne spluttered, her heart racing as Ruby stood. “The doctor?” she stumbled, watching as Ruby crossed the carpeted floor of the parlour to open the door to the hallway.

“Of course.” Ruby paused, her hand on the jamb, the other finding her belly as a wistful smile softened her features. “Anne, Moody and I are to be parents.”

Anne was dumbfounded, air stolen from her as Ruby disappeared into the hallway, Anne hearing the door open, Gilbert’s greeting as he stepped onto the tiles.

_Parents._

It seemed difficult to believe, Anne remembering them both as children, Ruby with ringleted hair and pale pink dresses, dreaming longingly for a boy who paid her no attention while Moody, clumsy Moody, bumbled through adolescence. She felt herself smile; laugh. How _wonderful_ that they were to become a family together. There was no pair as caring, no couple as sweet. Anne’s eyes smarted, welling with joyful tears.

“Anne is here,” she heard Ruby say as the heels of her boots clipped against the tiles.

“Oh.”

“She can stay for the examination, can’t she?”

“If you wish her to.”

Anne dashed hastily at her eyes, leaping to her feet as the door opened and Gilbert appeared, his hat in his hand, a satchel slung around him. He swallowed, shifting from one foot to the other. Anne saw the quiet confidence she had seen in him the day previous melt away. He was the insecure boy she had known once more. He nodded tersely as he took a cautious step into the room.

“Anne,” he greeted.

“Doctor Blythe.”

He looked at her with a question in his eyes, as though he wondered why she could call him nothing but his title, but it felt impersonal to Anne, easier to say. It didn’t make her feel as though every star had been stolen from her sky, Anne wandering aimlessly through the dark.

“How is your fiancé today?” he inquired. Anne wished they could talk about anything else.

“He is still in pain,” she stated matter-of-factly. “But he is much better than he was.”

Gilbert nodded. “I’m pleased to hear it.”

“Will I lie here then?” Ruby asked, gesturing to the settee. Anne’s eyes wrenched from Gilbert’s, almost forgetting why he had appeared on the minister’s doorstep in the first place.

Gilbert nodded, stepping further into the room, dropping his bag to the accent table by the winged arm of the sofa.

“If you feel most comfortable there,” he said, taking on the tone she heard him use yesterday as he pressed alcohol-soaked rags to skin. A voice that sounded like a comforting embrace. “I’ll give you a moment of privacy.” 

His skin reddened, the tips of his ears colouring as his head ducked from Anne’s.

“To undress,” he concluded, stepping out into the hallway and closing the door behind himself.

Ruby untucked her blouse from the waist of her skirt, her skin pinkening as trembling fingers undid the last three buttons. Anne noticed she had forgone a corset, her ribs protruding from below her skin, visible from the gap in the material. She lowered herself onto her back on the sofa, eyes closing as she took a deep, steadying breath.

“I’m afraid, Anne,” she whispered.

Anne came to stand by her, dropping to her knees beside her friend as she took Ruby’s hand in hers.

“Whatever are you afraid for?” she asked.

“Tillie told me she cried Holy murder when she birthed the twins. She said she felt like she was birthing the Devil himself.”

Ruby’s eyes were large and petrified. Anne felt herself smother a laugh.

“Tillie has always had a gift for the macabre.”

Ruby’s scared gaze found Anne’s. “Dearest Anne, even now I have no idea what you are saying most of the time.”

Anne laughed, Ruby’s girlish giggle joining hers, and they tittered like the girls they once were, laughing in the old story house in the forest as they spoke of dreams and stories and all they wished in life.

“I can’t believe you’re going to be a _mother,”_ Anne whispered. Ruby’s serene smile faltered, her eyes pooling with tears.

“Ruby, what’s wrong?”

“I’m not very strong, Anne,” she murmured, her grip tightening around Anne’s fingers. “And I have heard stories of little babies who have no heartbeat. What if mine hasn’t one?”

“You’re not to worry about that,” Anne soothed. She smoothed golden hair back from Ruby’s temples. “Think of happy things only. Only entertain thoughts like that when you are told they are true.”

Ruby nodded at Anne’s words, her eyes finding the ceiling. 

“Happy things only,” she repeated before she snorted a laugh, giggling like she had during their schooldays.

“My, Anne, do you remember when I thought myself so in love with Gilbert?” she reminisced.

Anne giggled at the memory of the girl who had filled a trousseau with kerchiefs monogrammed _G.B._ , how Ruby’s eyes followed him wherever he went, fixed to his back. Anne swallowed, only realising now that she knew Ruby’s gaze was unrelenting because her own had been too.

“What would that girl think of me now?” Ruby questioned with a laugh.

“I think she would be incredibly proud of you, Ruby. Like I am.”

They shared a smile as Gilbert knocked lightly upon the door, Ruby calling for him to enter.

Anne remained at Ruby’s side, feeling her fingers tremble as Gilbert approached them, collecting a pinard horn from his bag, a long brass cone that Anne imagined looked like a telescope from a pirate ship.

“May I?” he asked and Ruby nodded, allowing Gilbert to place the wide end of the instrument against her stomach.

He glanced at Anne who watched in awe as his ear rested on the other end of the horn, listening for sounds of life from inside her friend. Anne held her breath in anticipation, worried the sound of it would drown out the tiny heart that now beat inside Ruby. His mouth curved with a slow smile, his eyes meeting Ruby’s. She gasped with relief.

“It’s a strong heartbeat,” he announced with a grin.

“Oh, thank goodness,” Ruby breathed, her face relaxing with relief. “Oh, I wish I could hear it myself.”

“Could you listen to it, Anne, and tell me what it sounds like?” Ruby requested.

Anne’s brow curved at the question. She glanced hastily at Gilbert, who watched her with interest. She turned back to Ruby, shaking her head.

“I couldn’t possibly,” she began.

“You can,” Gilbert said at her side. She raised her eyes to him, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “If you wish.”

Anne looked between Gilbert, who held the Pinard horn out towards her, and Ruby who watched her expectantly.

“Well?” she pressed, wriggling slightly against the cushions.

“When did you get so bossy?” Anne asked, Ruby giggling as Anne took the horn from Gilbert.

“I don’t know what to do,” she said to him. He smiled at her reassuringly.

“Not to worry. I’ll show you how.”

He circled her wrist with his fingers, Anne flustered at his touch as he guided her hand towards Ruby’s stomach.

“Lay it flat,” he instructed. Anne placed the flared end of the horn low on Ruby’s stomach. “A little lower.”

She shifted it lower, glancing towards him for his approval. He nodded.

“Perfect. Now lower your ear to it.”

Anne did, her eyes still on his, anticipating his next instruction as her ear rested at the rounded tip of the horn.

His voice was low when he spoke next. “Can you hear anything?”

In truth, Anne could only hear the blood in her ears, raucous at his touch, his fingers having slipped from her wrist to her hand. She closed her eyes, straining her ears as she listened, the black of the backs of her eyelids distracting her from Gilbert’s earnest gaze.

_Thump. Thump. Thump._

Anne gasped, a gurgle of laughter erupting from her as her eyes flew open. Her mouth stretched into a smile that Gilbert returned, Anne suddenly feeling as though it was not the dregs of winter outside the window. It was June, and she had been caught in the warm light of the sun. Gilbert was June to Anne.

Anne could feel tears at her lashes as she looked to Ruby, who waited eagerly for Anne to tell her of her baby.

“Oh, Ruby,” she whispered. “It is _wonderful.”_

Ruby’s eyes shone with unshed tears. “What does it sound like, Anne?”

“Think of the loveliest sound in the world. Carols at Christmas or how the wind sounds when it rustles the leaves in the autumn.”

Ruby’s eyes fluttered shut.

“Can you imagine it?”

A dream-like smile played on Ruby’s lips. “I can.”

“Well, it is even better than that. There is no sound as lovely in the world.”

“How I wish I could hear it,” Ruby lamented.

Gilbert smiled at Anne’s side. “It won’t be too long until you can.”

The appointment ended with Gilbert enquiring over Ruby’s health. Had she been ill? Was she eating? Could she sleep comfortably?

She answered that she felt perfectly well, save for a little sickness, but she was so blissfully happy that nausea could never bother her, and soon they found themselves on their feet, preparing for the walk to church.

“Don’t think me terribly rude, but I told Moody I would meet him before the ceremony,” Ruby explained as they stepped from her cottage. “I can’t wait to inform him all is well.”

She scurried ahead of Gilbert and Anne, disappearing around the bend as Gilbert fixed his hat to his head. He gestured before him for them to begin their walk and they did, strides even as they fell into step beside each other.

They walked in silence for some time, the sound of it so loud Anne was certain it would be audible from the tops of the trees that lined their path. 

She opened her mouth to speak. Closed it again. She was uncertain what to say to him, awkward at being alone with him once more. The last time they had spoken, just Gilbert and her, he had left a crevice in her brittle heart. She was fearful this would be something that would continue each time she saw him, veins threading along the glass until it could take the strain no longer and shattered. A sharp-edged love that left Anne bleeding.

She looked skyward as they walked, the sky so pale it appeared as white as the snow that still clung in patches to boughs and beneath rocks, melting slowly into the earth. She heard the rustle of bracken underfoot, brushing against her petticoats as she walked. She glanced to the ground, seeing the decaying leaves and sticks from the year previous turning into mulch, little green shoots rearing their heads through the muck.

“There is so much hope in the spring,” she murmured, although she wasn’t quite sure if she had said it to be countered or just because she felt it, like a prayer.

“There is,” Gilbert answered, his gloved hands finding his coat pockets as they strolled.

“So much new life in it,” Anne continued. She smiled wistfully, feeling Gilbert’s eyes find her, lingering. “I must say, your job is _quite_ exhilarating, although I’m sure Mrs Lynde feels put out at you both being doctor _and_ midwife to Avonlea.”

Gilbert glanced to his feet, kicking at the ground with the toe of a scuffed boot as they strolled, a warm chuckle emitting from his lips. His brow rounded as he tilted his head, his mouth twisting into a smirk as he reflected on the woman who had been at the birth of almost every baby born to mothers in Avonlea.

“She didn’t think it was my place initially,” he admitted. “But she _is_ getting older and was happy to pass the reins to me when she heard I had experiences in birthing a baby before.”

“Oh, yes,” Anne reminisced. “I forgot you were with Mary as she birthed Delphine.”

Gilbert nodded. “And before that, when I was in Trinidad.”

“Trinidad?” Anne gasped. “Well, this is _quite_ the admission. How old were you then? Sixteen?”

Gilbert nodded, a laugh to his voice at Anne’s look of wonderment. “I was. That baby was the reason why I wanted to become a doctor.”

Anne grinned, turning her face to the sky, Gilbert laughing as she called out, “Thank you, little one, wherever you are!”

Her voice echoed back on them through the trees, and Gilbert felt enveloped by Anne, the landscape always reminding him of her, her hair the earth and her eyes the water. Her skin as smooth as the worn trunks of trees. Now her voice would be here too, echoing around him as he walked this path. Another piece of Anne that would haunt him.

“And how many lives have you brought into the world now?” she asked, drawing him back to her, his gaze now on the girl who had birthed this island, Avonlea never so alive to him until Anne came to it.

“Eight,” he answered. “Ruby and Moody’s will be the ninth.”

“Nine babies,” Anne repeated. “How surreal that Moody and Ruby are to be parents.”

“I know.”

Anne breathed out, her breath a cloud before her. “Sometimes I feel as though I was only a child yesterday, and yet here is dear little Ruby, about to be a mother.”

“As is Tillie,” Gilbert added. Anne nodded.

“Yes, and to twin boys. Quite the handful.”

Gilbert chuckled his deep, warm laugh. “She likes to fuss, but by all accounts she has taken to motherhood like a duck to water.”

Anne thought of Tillie, rounded and jolly. She imagined no one would be as comforting as a mother as her. She had a flair for the dramatic but was kindly with a quick sense of humour. Anne decided Tillie would make a lovely mother, deciding she should call upon her during her visit.

“And what of Charlie Sloane?” Anne enquired, thinking back on when Charlie had once told her she would not bear children. She suppressed a laugh at the irony of it all. She may be able to bear them but Anne would forever be a childless wife.

“Charlie is still working his father’s farm,” Gilbert said.

“And are there to be any little Sloanes?”

“Not as of yet.”

“What about little Blythes?”

Anne instantly regretted her question, a guilty flush colouring her skin as Gilbert’s mouth set, the muscle at his jaw clenching momentarily. His eyes fixed on the path ahead of him.

“Not for me.”

It was a plain statement; clipped. Anne felt her stomach sink with despondency, her heart sing with relief.

“But certainly there were ladies in Toronto?” she pressed, unsure why she was broaching this topic with him. She was half hopeful that he was attached, that she could retire the love she kindled in her heart, hand cupped to protect the little flame from a draught.

“There were.”

“None good enough for Doctor Blythe?” she teased. She regretted it straight away.

He stopped, pinning her with a gaze so intense it caused a shiver to tremble along her spine, a furnace igniting in her belly. His eyes flickered across each feature like he was committing them to memory.

He tore his gaze from her, beginning to pace once more.

“I believe I wasn’t good enough for the one.”

Anne tripped after him, desperate to soothe the anguish she could see lurking in his eyes, a greyness usurping the warm gold.

“I wouldn’t believe that,” she insisted.

He stopped abruptly. Anne startled at the change in him.

He turned to her, searching her eyes wildly with his. “You wouldn’t?”

She felt herself unable to speak, her heart heavy at the sombre melancholia in his gaze. The look of a lost soul. Anne’s hand yearned to reach out for him. She fisted it at her side.

She found herself wondering if there was some deep secret of Gilbert’s she had yet to uncover. She knew he had been on the cusp of an engagement when he had left for school, a letter from Mrs Lynde informing her that Gilbert had gone to Toronto to be educated, and how disappointed the woman had been at the news, as she thought he and Miss Rose the handsomest couple at the fair. Anne had felt relief when she’d read the initial message detailed in the letter. He was not to be married. He had not left the country. He was still there and he could still be hers.

She didn’t know why she had never considered before that Winifred had turned him down, that his going to Toronto was not solely his choice.

Anne raised her eyes to him. She swallowed. She thought of what to say.

“I’m sorry she broke your heart.”

His brow furrowed, a look to his face as though she had just repeated the infamous incident from their school days, Anne’s slate becoming acquainted with Gilbert’s head. She turned from him, desperate to free herself of his gaze. She began to walk.

He walked two steps behind her, Anne slowing as they neared the church so he could catch up.

“Doctor Blythe,” came a call as they walked the last few steps, Anne silent as Gilbert stopped to shake the hand of Mr Harrison.

“I’ve found a boil, doctor. Rather painful. Perhaps you could…”

“You tell me when suits you, Mr Harrison, and I will be there.”

“Thank you, doctor.”

“Good morning, Doctor Blythe,” called another.

“Good morning.”

Anne watched as people raised their hands to him in greeting, Gilbert nodding or waving or murmuring his response.

“You’ve become quite the man about town, Doctor Blythe,” Anne observed, clasping her hands before her as they walked.

Gilbert’s laugh was dull. “It seems people care to know you when you’re the only one who stands between them and perceived death.”

“Funny,” Anne mused. “Moody would tell you that was God.”

Anne grinned as Gilbert chuckled at her jape, her eyes sketching the outline of his chin once more, the curve to his cheek reminding her of another time they were side by side, Anne cross-legged upon a chest as Gilbert’s thigh pressed against her knee.

“ _And I know what I must not be,”_ his voice echoed. “ _A country doctor, limited to delivering death sentences.”_

“Whatever happened to your dream of being more than a country doctor?” she heard herself ask.

Gilbert stilled, his expression softening as his hand found the curved handle of the door that led to the church. His eyes flickered to her, a sad smile fleeting across his features.

“I wanted to come home,” he replied.

Anne was silent as he was swallowed by the darkness of the church.

**********

_“It was serious.”_ Anne read aloud from where she sat at the foot of the bed in Matthew’s room, her back leaning against the frame, knees bent towards her chest as she propped a book on her knee _. “In fact, Marius had reached that first violent and charming hour with which grand passions begin. A glance had wrought all this.”_

_“When the mine is charged, when the conflagration is ready, nothing is more simple. A glance is a spark. It was all over with him. Marius loved a woman. His fate was entering the unknown.”_

She raised her head from the novel, glancing at the figure resting below the coverlet, a hushed hum emitting from closed lips as his eyes rested, letting her words wash over him like water at a baptismal font.

“Do you believe in love at first sight?” she asked, silent as his eyes blinked open, pale as ice under purpled eyelids.

“I believe anything is possible when it comes to love,” he answered.

Anne marked her page, closing the book and placing it on the bed beside her. She shifted on the mattress, curling her legs below her as she surveyed him, tucking her hair behind her ears.

“But do you believe it’s possible your heart can know what it wants from just one glance?”

He laughed, a shallow wheezed laugh that made Anne wince. She couldn’t begin to imagine the pain he must have felt with it. 

“Did you not hear what I just said?” he joked, smiling as though he had not coughed at all. As though the hacking din that filled the air around them had only been a figment of Anne’s imagination.

He returned to his humming; the song as soft as a lullaby. Anne unfurled her legs from beneath her, drawing them to her chest and lying her head against her knees. She breathed in one deep, steadying breath, the gentle singing enwrapping her in a dream of a dance. A glance.

One time, not too long ago, Anne had stood before a boy who had eyes like a treasure chest, a look filled with gold, precious and invaluable. She had surveyed him from where she stood, felt his hand catching hers and spinning her to the jaunty lilt of a banjo, and she fancied herself as falling in love. Falling in love with a single look.

She raised her head, wondering if her companion had fallen asleep, his singing ceased, but he stared skyward, a dreamy smile to his warped mouth.

“What are you thinking of?” she asked him. His eyes fell from where they were fixed on the ceiling, his grin broadening as he took her under his gaze.

“I’m thinking of how I think I fell in love at first sight.”

Anne’s mouth curved as she listened to him speak, telling her of the look that he lost his heart to. It was a story she had heard countless times before. They had always been truthful and honest with each other, but she enjoyed hearing it as much as she knew he enjoyed telling it.

As his story ended, he reached his hand out, the only part of him that appeared unbroken, his fingers stretching to her. Anne took his hand in hers, allowing him to squeeze it.

“I love you so much, my darling girl,” he said.

Anne crawled up the bed, lying beside him, close enough to feel his comfort. She let her head roll to the side, resting lightly on his shoulder.

“I love you too,” she replied. 

And she meant it. She meant every word.

She heard him sigh beside her, a pained sound. The blankets rustled as he lifted a hand to his head. She raised her head to him, peering down into his stricken face, twisted with doubt and guilt.

“What is it?” she questioned.

“I wish I could give you more than just _love,_ Anne.”

“We decided that was all we needed, remember? What more is there?”

His face lifted to hers.

“Faithfulness, Anne. I wish I could give you faithfulness.”

***********

_Art is Cole’s truest passion._

_Art and Anne._

_They both spark within him the greatest joy he has ever felt that sometimes he thinks them the same thing._

_But Anne does not make him feel the way great art does._

_She is happiness. She is a meadow on a summer’s day and the patch of carpet he curls like a cat upon as the sun spills through a window and warms it. She is the scent of parchment, the rough feel of it between fingers. She is the feeling he gets when he finds a lucky penny on the street._

_And people cannot be art._

_Great art is never born from a place of happiness._

_To Cole, art is anguish. It is the gnashing of teeth and the wailing of women. It is the suffering of a soul and the secrets that are buried in the dark. It is a sepulchre in which the spirit extinguishes, each stroke of a spear headed pencil a silent plea for what could have been._

_Through art, Cole can explore the boy he once was, when his boots pinched his toes and his trousers stopped two inches short of his ankles. He can explore the boy he still is; the boy who does not feel his ego stroked by doe-eyed innocence and the swell of a bosom beneath a blouse. The boy who skulks in the shadow of others, who ducks his head to not draw attention to himself for fear people would see through him as clearly as a pane of glass._

_Sometimes Cole fears he is not quite boy at all._

_With that fear Cole creates art._

_Within art, he hides himself. He moulds the world he wishes to see from misshapen lumps of earth and pencils the parts of himself that are much too misunderstood, much too dangerous, to ever be said out loud. With his delicate hands, he outlines the very secrets of his soul and wonders how people can feel it so wrong to be like him when they crowd the canvas he has created and swoon, clap his back and shake his hand and say, “What a wonderful piece.”_

_If only they knew, he thinks bitterly._

_It is before his art he finds himself now, eyeing the piece that his professor has hung on display for other students to come and sip over, red wine swilling in their mouths as they stare into ink and charcoal, swirls of water colour and oils and wonder, “What could it mean?”_

_He has never quite liked this piece, could never get it perfectly right. It came to him on a grey day, when his mood was particularly stormy, and he took his stool and his pad of parchment and made his way to the water. To be by the water is to be cleansed, Cole thinks, so he selected a spot where the water lapped best and he sat down and he breathed. Allowed the salt tang to fill him up, seep into him and displace the sadness to his page, pencil scraping against rough paper._

_It had been a cathartic act, the day this piece came to be, but as it hangs before him now, he can see it is imperfect. Too much of him in it. It is too painful to look at, yet he can’t draw away._

_“What do you suppose it means?” asks a voice and Cole’s head jerks to the right, eyeing a young man standing beside him, not four years Cole’s senior, hands thrust in his pockets as he drinks in the picture._

_Cole eyes it: a storm swelling in the sea, a great, rolling wave cresting a little sail boat caught in the dark, ready to crash into it, brandish it against the rocks and drag it into its depths, the little boat untethered to anything._

_“It’s unmoored,” comes Cole’s reply and he feels the eyes of the stranger upon him, fighting the urge to look up._

_Unmoored. Uncertain. Lost at sea._

_“The painting or the artist?” the stranger asks._

_“Both.”_

_“How sad.”_

_Cole stares ahead, seeing his heart reflected back on himself like it is a looking glass mounted to the wall. He hears the man shift beside him, lift a glass to his lips and drink, the wet sound of him opening his mouth to speak and closing it again. He sighs. So does Cole._

_“I’m Royal,” he says._

_“Do I call you Sir or Your Highness?” Cole asks. The stranger laughs and it’s deep and delicious, and Cole is surprised because he isn’t funny. He isn’t much of anything, really._

_“Roy,” the stranger clarifies. “Roy Gardner.”_

_Cole looks down, sees a hand proffered to him. He looks up to meet the strangers face for the very first time, and he feels something in him flutter to life. The one thing he wishes would die._

_The stranger is handsome, high cheekbones and wide lips. Warm, brown eyes shaped much like a cat’s; elongated, sultry. He is imperfect, his straight, roman nose flared at the nostrils, a smile that shows too much gum, but it is in these imperfections Cole sees beauty._

_He takes the stranger’s hand in his own. Shakes._

_He thinks people can be art after all._

**********

Anne adored the spring.

She loved all seasons: the sultry summer haze that lingered over golden wheat crops, that then morphed into fat gourds and brightly coloured leaves, coppery sparks in the skies overhead. When the time came for the leaves to fall, and the apples had all been plucked, Anne enjoyed the solace that came with the snow. The world appeared stark but was blanketed in a glittering layer of hope, for spring to come again and the world to burst once more with brilliant life.

She could feel spring now, as she paced down the path that led to the gap in the fence of Green Gables, slipping through it and out onto the beaten track she had walked countless times before.

Her day had passed uneventfully after she had returned from church, Anne seating herself at the side of her fiancé and reading to him until he felt tired. She let him sleep as she aided Marilla with preparation of their evening meal before returning to him, staying with him while he ate.

“What do you wish to do this evening?” she asked him as she removed the tray from his lap. “We could continue _Les Miserables_?”

He chuckled. “I love to hear you, dear girl. But I would like some solace and a sketchbook tonight, if that would be alright?”

Anne nodded, bringing him his pad and pencils, lighting a lamp to illuminate where he worked, before she pulled on her scarf and coat and stepped out into the sun.

It was cold, bitingly so, but there was the feeling of a dawning of something new in the way the light lingered in the sky longer than it had done previously. In how the blades of grass that spiked their hardy heads through the slowly melting snow seemed greener. Fresh. Anne inhaled deeply. She felt that things may not be at bad as she had felt.

Anne had always been as enduring as the grass, blanketed in snows and frosts but always living beneath it, the snow melting away to show she was still there, still growing in spite of the weather, and she had felt the creeping of a frost crawl over her once more since she had returned.

Since Gilbert Blythe and his medical bag had appeared at Green Gables.

She didn’t want to be in love with him but being back here with him, walking through the wooded path to church side by side, his warmth radiating from him and embracing Anne, had felt like the wearing of an old item of clothing. Familiar, soft, finding it in the back of the wardrobe and recalling how it was once a favourite, questioning if it still fit and finding that it did. The material still moulded to the body and the buttons fastened at the back. The elbows were worn in the way that made it loose and comfortable to wear. Suddenly, it was a favourite article of clothing once more. One that you never wished to remove.

That clothing was Gilbert Blythe to Anne.

He had been stolen from her after church, a gaggle of wives swarming him like geese, his attention taken by women who held out limp wrists for him to inspect or complained of painful ankles. Anne imagined the ailments were made up, conjured by women who wished to be called upon by the handsome doctor, seeing beyond wedding bands and indulging in some innocent flirtation. For his part, Gilbert seemed to take it good-naturedly, smiling his charming smile at them, a flash of slightly crooked teeth, as he tutted over their invented ailments, listening sympathetically as they complained of sickly stomachs or pains in their chests. Anne had watched soundlessly and, seeing his attention engaged, she turned from him and strode towards home, wondering why she could sense the bitter curl of petty jealousy invade her, swirl its venom through her blood.

She had no need to be jealous. The world was never meant for her and Gilbert. He was still in love with a girl he had once courted, the thought of which causing the innards of Anne’s stomach to curdle. And Anne? Well, she was to be married to a man who had hair as fair as summer sun and eyes as pale as frost. He had skin unmarked by a smattering of freckles like those endearing dots that dusted the bridge of Gilbert’s nose. He would love her, but not in the way a man was to love his wife. It would be gentler than that. A hand hold, not quite a kiss, but it was still love. More than Jane Andrews had.

Anne had thrown herself into her chores and duties, attempting to distract herself from Gilbert, and now that she had stumbled upon some time untenanted by any other tasks, she walked through her beloved forest. She reacquainted herself with the trees and shrubs and dells that she had missed greatly during her time in the city, and she allowed the biting wind to blow Gilbert Blythe from her head until he was nothing but a ghost of what she once wished she could have been.

She could feel the wind whip around her, rustling through the leaves of the evergreens that stretched skyward, boughs not quite touching, allowing light to pass through them and illuminate the floor. The air always felt different in Avonlea, Anne believing there to be enchantment in the breeze that tugged at the loose tendrils of flame red hair that escaped her woollen hat, pushing against her back and driving her forward, deeper into the forest.

She hummed as she walked. Traced her bare fingertips, white from the cold, against rough, damp bark and waxy green leaves, hearing the sharp snap of twigs beneath her feet as she moved, allowing the wind to carry her where it felt she needed to go. Two steps forward, one to the right. Seventeen steps into the heart of the woods, where her old story club once stood, the wind guiding her forward still, lifting the edges of her skirts and exposing the muddied petticoats as they dragged through the mud underfoot.

She slipped against a patch of ice, laughing as she gripped onto a trunk beside her, feeling her foot give away against the ground. Her laughter echoed around her, Anne as much a part of the forest as the twigs and the pinecones that littered the floor. The wind encircled her once more, beckoning her forward, and Anne thought how sometimes wind could feel like fate. It was tempestuous and temperamental. It could be gentle, warming. There was a comfort to it. It could blow something out of the reach of a grasp. It could bring it back.

She trod on, led by the wind, lifting her skirt to leap across a little brook she had never crossed before, using a moss coated stone as a step. She looked skyward, the trees thickening above her, gnarled boughs kissed white with winter and branches coated in pine needles. She hadn’t walked so far into the forest before, relishing in the feeling of new land beneath her feet, Anne delving into somewhere unexplored, imagining the flutter of faerie wings from behind lichens and bright flashes of hardy flowers which still bloomed in winter.

“Once upon a time,” she murmured, the woods darkening around her, glittering with frost and icicles where the sun couldn’t reach. “There was a maiden who lived amongst the trees. As she danced through the forest on a glorious spring evening, she stumbled upon a man who was crying by the water.”

“ _Why are you crying?_ She asked him, and as he lifted his head, she saw he was beautiful. Much too beautiful for the mortal world. _I have fallen in love with a sprite_ , he told her, but she knew sprites could never wed humans. They would risk eternal exile for such a terrible thing.”

“But love was love, and the girl, who was pure of heart, agreed to marry the man, bring him to her cottage in the forest and live with him there, where he could see his beloved sprite every day, when the moon shone and the people slept….”

A crack came from behind Anne. Her story died on her lips.

“Anne?”

Anne’s blood pulsed, her cheeks flaming as she recognised the voice behind her. Warm. Low.

Gilbert.

She turned to him slowly, spotted him standing to her left, five steps from where she stood, his hands buried deep in the pockets of his coat.

“Doctor.”

She greeted him with a curt nod, watching as his brow furrowed. He glanced to the side, shifting from one foot to the other. His head bowed, his eyes finding the toes of his boots.

“You know you don’t have to call me that.”

Anne nodded. “I know.”

His head rose to her, eyes finding her in the centre of a clearing, illuminated by a single beam of sunlight. He swallowed.

“I’d rather you didn’t call me that.”

It was said quietly, a sincere look to his face. His hands pushed further into his pockets.

“I know.”

The trees held their breath, not a sound ushered around them. Silence stretched as wide as a ravine.

Anne observed him as his head ducked once more, his mouth opening as though he was to speak. He didn’t. She felt the weight of disappointment.

“I’m exploring, if you care to join me?”

She wasn’t sure why she said it. She wanted to run. To lift her skirts and jump the stream and not stop until she had reached Green Gables. But she also wanted to stay. He had always made her feel like that. To run always was the easier option.

“I would like that,” he replied.

He came closer. One step. Two. Close enough for them to promenade together but far enough away that Anne wasn’t able to reap any heat from him. She couldn’t smell the familiar scent that clung to his clothes. She inhaled the cold air.

 _So much for blowing Gilbert Blythe from my head_ , she thought, ruefully. Instead, the winds of fate had blown him right to her.

“Were you telling a story?” he asked, falling into an easy step beside her, Anne’s eyes on the ground below.

“You must think me terribly childish,” she laughed. She heard him chuckle beside her. “Some habits never die.”

“I’m glad,” Gilbert replied, Anne lifting her head to see him smile at her, cradling her in his gaze. He looked away, out towards the forest. “You’re still so very _Anne_.”

There was a note of nostalgia in his voice and Anne’s eyes darted to him to see a gentle smile curve his mouth. He appeared to be lost in a memory. She wished she knew what it was.

They paced on, Anne stopping briefly to palm at the bark of a new evergreen acquaintance, stooping to lift a pinecone from the forest floor, Gilbert silent at her side, awestruck at the dryad before him. How someone could seem to be tethered to the earth, yet so otherworldly all at the same time.

“I searched for you after church,” he said suddenly. Anne’s head snapped to him.

She passed the pinecone from one hand to another, feeling it rough between her fingertips.

“Oh, yes?”

“Yes.”

Anne nodded, her eyes falling to the floor. “I thought you seemed busy.”

“I had time for you.”

Anne turned from him, beginning to walk once more. There was a frenzy beneath the surface of her skin, her body a cacophony of pounding heart and racing blood and wild, wild butterfly wings. She counted her steps, distracting herself from the man who walked by her as she moved.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

“I thought we might need to talk.”

Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.

“Anne!”

She whipped around. “You know, I’ve never been in this part of the woods before.”

His head shook slightly, his brow furrowing as his eyes roamed over her face. There was a wildness to him. A desperation in how his breath seemed to come in quick gasps. His fingers flexed by his side. Furled. Unfurled. He dropped his shoulders.

“Can I show you somewhere?”

Anne melted beneath his gaze.

“Yes.”

She let him lead her deeper into the forest.

Anne might have been afraid once, passing bare branches that twisted like hands. She might have told herself ghost stories, convincing herself the dell was haunted, but she was with Gilbert. The only thing that haunted her was the ghost of what might have been, if things had been different.

He was quiet as he walked, pushing down stalks that block the path he was paving for them, allowing her to pass, and with each fleeting glance, how his hand caught at her elbow when she slipped in an iced puddle, she was struck with the sensation of something brewing within her, bubbling to the surface like the bubbles of champagne she had once tasted at one of Aunt Jo’s gatherings, the sensation of them popping against her tongue making her feel giddy, and warm and wonderful.

She fought the impulse to allow herself to feel that way once more. Being thrust back into the life of Gilbert Blythe had brought back what she long wished buried. She had entered an engagement. She couldn’t feel this way forever. She couldn’t long for what didn’t want her. For what she couldn’t have.

Her heart was Pandora’s box and Gilbert the keeper of the key to it. He walked into Green Gables like brass sliding into a lock, enfolding her in his gaze, those hauntingly beautiful hazel eyes she sometimes still saw when she slept.

“Mind your step,” he warned, his hand coming to hover low at her back as she stepped over a mossy stone that jutted sharply at one end.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked him.

“It’s a surprise.”

His face widened with a grin, stepping forward over the sticks and mosses. Anne followed him like a loyal pet, stumbling through stones and over branches, her brow furrowing as they seemed to near a thicket of trees, a large willow with low hanging leaves.

“Are you ready?” he asked, reaching for her hand.

His face wore a warm smile, his eyes dancing with anticipation. Anne felt her own face split with a grin, reaching out to place her hand in his.

“Lead on, Mr Blythe.”

He laughed, drawing the trailing leaves of the willow aside and disappearing under it, Anne following behind him.

She felt her heart flutter, her eyes closing as tendrils of the willow tree kissed gently at her skin. They stilled. Gilbert dropped her hand. His voice was close to her ear.

“Open your eyes.”

Anne did, drawing in a sharp breath as she took in their surroundings. The most beautiful secret garden sprawled before her.

“...Gilbert,” she whispered.

He grinned down at her, watching as her eyes widened in amazement, Anne spinning slowly as she took in each stone and pebble. Each delicate flower.

A low stone wall surrounded the garden, rock as grey as the breast of a pigeon paving a cobbled path that twisted around overgrown flower beds, tender green buds ripening on naked stalks. The ground was covered in a delicate layer of snow, sprinkled as gently as powdered sugar.

It glittered beneath the ice that clung to the willow, shafts of pale sunlight dappling it in an ethereal glow. A low stone bench had been placed by a flower bed, waxy leaves from overgrown shrubbery spilling onto the path. Snowdrops sprang forth from cracks in the stone, trailing honeysuckle and pansies pushing proudly from the soil, the large heads of Christmas roses bobbing in the chilled wind. A squat cottage, sloping from years of neglect and harsh storms, was situated in the corner, the paint on the wood blistered and flaking after decades of frosts, the roof dipping at the centre, threads of silver cracking the glass of the windows.

And covering it all, twisting up the walls of the cottage, and around the legs of the bench, lapping the flagstones like waves on the shore, were vines of lush, green ivy, their colour rich against cool stone. Bright green life conflicting with the blunt bareness of winter.

Gilbert went to sit on the bench, settling against the stone as Anne wandered the path. His eyes trailed her, following her every step as she moved like a garden faerie dancing around her home. Her fingertips trailed over stone walls, tracing the curved leaves and twisted veins of the plant that wound around them as she explored the haven they had come upon.

“What is this place?” she asked, face tilted upwards to the tree above them, shrouding them in privacy. She weaved the cobbled path, moving between overgrown shrubbery and stone.

“Have you really not been here before?” he asked, staggered as she shook her head.

He had always known Anne to be a venturesome soul, spending years in rapt awe of the tales of adventures she detailed to the girls in his class, of the tree she had come upon; “The friendliest on the island.” Or the haunted dell she had discovered where spectres loomed, a solitary spirit roaming in search of a lost love, Gilbert’s nose buried in his book, barely reading a word as he hung on every syllable she spoke.

He hadn’t thought there was an inch of their little town that she had not explored, Gilbert finding traces of her wherever he went: in the broken planks of the shack he had found in the forest, and at the beach in the summer, as the ocean lapped his feet, the hue the exact shade as her expressive eyes, glittering as brightly as she did when the sun beat down upon the rippling tide.

“I’ve never known anywhere so wonderful to exist before.”

Her voice struck him like a song, his heart swelling as he watched her roam this spot so beloved by him.

His laughter was soft as she spun to peer through the windows of the cottage, the interior murky, dust coating the windows, silver spiderwebs, frozen with February, decorating the corners.

She glanced over her shoulder, a curve to her lips as her eyes fell upon him. “What is so funny to you, Doctor Blythe?”

“Nothing,” he answered. “It’s just strange to me that you have never visited here before, when this is the place that makes me think of you most.”

Anne’s shoulders sloped, her heart racing beneath bone at the sincerity to his voice, the gentleness. His eyes were tender as they rested upon her. A softness as he held her in his gaze. He looked at Anne like he was a blindman who had just been granted the gift of sight.

“And why’s that?” she heard herself ask.

“There’s a story to Hester Gray’s garden,” he answered. “If you care to hear it.”

Anne nodded, turning her head from him to continue her exploration; the Garden of Eden hidden in the heart of Avonlea.

“Once upon a time,” he began, laughing as Anne shot him a look.

“Is this a fairy tale, Doctor?” she teased, a heat brewing inside her as his lips quirked with a smirk.

“I recall you enjoy a tragical romance,” he replied, Anne’s smile widening at his answer.

“What an astute memory you have. You may continue.”

He breathed a laugh, his eyes trailing Anne’s every step as she rounded the path, watching as she moved in and out of shadow, flame red hair aglow as it was caressed by the white winter sun, darkening to auburn when it was cloaked by shadow.

“Once upon a time, there was a farmer named Jordan Gray.” Anne nodded, delicate hands tracing a thread of ivy. “He worked here, in Avonlea, but once ventured to Boston.”

Anne’s eyes widened. “Boston?”

Gilbert smiled. Nodded. “He was an adventurer, much like you.”

Anne’s smile was soft as her eyes found him, bundled in his red, plaid coat on the bench, his gaze unwavering as she wound her way around the garden.

“There he met Hester Murray.” Anne stepped into sunlight, luminescent once more. Gilbert felt his breath catch. “The most beautiful woman he had ever seen.”

“She was weary from working there and wished to return to the country, so they married, that very year, and he took her home to Avonlea, where his father gifted them a farm to run. There, Jordan made her a garden, and she loved it dearly, tending to it for the four years she lived with him.”

“Even after sickness darkened their door, and Hester took consumption, she still worked this little garden, completely dedicated to it. And as her time to go drew nearer, she would pray that she would die in it, here amongst the ivy and the stone.”

Anne’s eyes found his, entranced by his tale.

“What happened to her?” she whispered, a breeze whistling through the leaves above their heads. Anne shivered.

“Hester grew weaker,” Gilbert continued. “Her illness took so much from her that she was no longer able to tend to the garden she loved so much. One day, Jordan led her to the garden. That would be her last time. She lay in his arms, right here on this very bench, and closed her eyes, and her spirit slipped away with the wind.”

Anne came to him, sinking onto the bench at his side, feeling his warmth radiate from him and wrap around her like the arms of Jordan Gray as he held his wife.

“She is buried here.” Gilbert pointed out towards the flower beds. “Right below the roses. And afterwards, Jordan found it too painful to be near the garden, haunted by the memory of his wife, so he returned to Boston. And ten years later, when his time came to join his wife once again, he returned to the garden, sank into the earth and allowed the Lord to take him. Even in death they were together, laid out side by side in the soil.”

Anne wiped at a stray tear, her eyes on the roses that marked the resting place of Jordan and Hester Gray.

“What a beautiful story,” she whispered, tilting her head back to look towards the Heavens, the sky clear in the gaps between the boughs. She felt a breeze tug at the hair that spilled from beneath her hat, the gentle hands of Hester Gray.

“It feels as though she is here still,” Anne mused. “Here where the spirit meets the bone.”

Anne’s eyes found him, tracing the slope of his forehead, the bridge of his nose and fullness of his lips as he stared out over the shrubs. She blinked, drew her eyes from him, joined him in drinking in their surroundings, Anne committing the moment to memory.

“I was given a book that belonged to my mother,” she said into the silence. “ _The Language of Flowers_. I’ve read it cover to cover a multitude of times.”

She could see Gilbert’s head bob from the corner of her eye, the warmth from honeyed hazel as his gaze lingered on her.

“I’m sure that’s a special thing to have.”

“It is,” she answered. “It’s one of my most treasured possessions.”

He nodded once more.

“I read in it,” she persisted, “about the meaning of ivy.”

“Oh, yes? And what is that?”

“It’s resilient. Hardy. It can survive the most biting of winter’s and still remain the freshest green.”

“It sounds like a remarkable little plant,” Gilbert murmured.

“It is.” Anne turned towards him, squinting as she searched her mind for the exact words she had read in her book. “ _Ivy - Eternity. Fidelity. Devotion_.”

His gaze locked to hers, Anne’s heartbeat quickening as she saw his eyes slide to her lips, his own parting slightly as he breathed out a word.

“Devotion.”

Anne heard skin slip along stone, his hand brush against hers, his fingers covering her own. Her eyes fell to where their hands joined, a drumming inside her chest as his fingers curled around hers. He lifted her hand in his, thumb brushing against her knuckles. He appeared to consider the weight of her hand in his own.

His voice was carried away by the wind.

“Your hands are cold.”

They weren’t for long, Anne’s skin searing hot as he lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to it.

 _Devotion_.

She felt her breath be stolen from her lungs as she watched his eyes close, a dark fan of lashes resting atop his cheekbones. Her heart swelled inside of her, something lodging in her throat as her eyes began to well.

“Gilbert…”

His face changed. Eyes opened. Anne’s hand fell to the stone.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Forgive me.”

He went to push himself from the bench; to walk past her, to leave her alone in the middle of this magical patch of peace they had found. Anne couldn’t stop herself, her hand reaching out and grabbing his. He stilled, his eyes falling to their clasped hands.

“Please, Gilbert,” she pleaded, though she wasn’t sure what she pleaded for.

For him to stay? For him to sit by her, backtrack and pretend she had never felt the brush of his lips? For him to tell her the wildness she felt inside her was not only one sided? That he felt it too, deep within him.

His eyes were warm but imploring. Searching. Anne didn’t know what for.

She felt herself warm with the lick of flames, a scene playing in her head where he had looked at her with such uncertainty. With fear and hope and longing. Three words repeated in her mind.

_Just one thing._

She shivered at the memory; at the realisation those three words had sparked in her, although she didn’t recognise it at the time. She was in love with Gilbert Blythe, and for a moment, she thought he may have been in love with her too.

There was a spark inside of her. A bright burst of hope that she had been wrong all those years ago.

“I know you’re engaged.”

His voice was strangled, breathless. His eyes seemed to be made of glass; marbles peering back at her. She felt an ache inside herself.

“I just hoped…” His eyes fell to his feet. “I thought you had a change of heart.”

Anne searched for a clue, a sign, something on his face that told her she should know what he was trying to say. She couldn’t find it, her mind too fogged with misunderstanding. Bewilderment.

“What do you mean?” she pressed. “I – I don’t understand.”

“God, Anne!”

He tore away from her, turning his back to her as though it hurt him too much to be before her. His hands raked roughly through his hair, his eyes screwing tight, Gilbert willing the tears he felt to disappear back into the depths of his being, down where his anguish roiled.

“Surely,” he pleaded. “Surely you remember my letter?”

Anne felt herself freeze, trapped in time like this forgotten oasis she had found herself seated in.

“Your letter?” she echoed.

“Yes. My letter. I left it in your room.”

Anne’s eyes fell to the ground. How could she have forgotten that letter? It was the letter that first broke her. That tore the hope from her sapling heart.

“Of course, I remember your letter.” Her voice was empty. He recoiled at her tone.

He shook his head, persisting with his fight. Pandora’s box had been unsealed. The contents must be freed.

“Then you know.” His voice was urgent. He stepped towards her. “You must know how much I loved you.”

Anne’s head snapped up sharply.

“Loved me?” she hissed, springing to her feet. “Gilbert, you tore my heart out with that letter. You knew how I felt for you and you couldn’t even bring yourself to say to me in person you didn’t feel the same.”

“How you felt for me?” He laughed, and it was dull, flat. Anne’s mouth tasted of bile. “I knew how you felt for me, alright. You never cared for me, Anne. I don’t know why I thought you could have.”

He went to move past her once more, Anne’s mouth agape as he neared the gap in the willow they had passed through.

She felt her mind swirl with confusion, the earth tilt on an axis. Surely he had read her letter. He had to have read it. Something inside her flared. A desperation. A need to stop him. The words fell from her before she could swallow them back.

“I loved you.” 

His feet stilled. His head tilted slightly. 

She pressed on. “I wrote in my letter.”

His back remained against her, like the closing of a door. She saw his shoulders rise. Drop again. When he spoke, she thought at first it might have just been the wind.

“Letter?”

She took a step closer to him. “Yes. My letter.”

He finally turned, his body curving slowly towards her. He shook his head.

“I never received a letter.”

“You never… But that can’t be true! I left it. I called one afternoon and left it with Hazel.”

He stepped closer, his gaze flickering with something golden. Something like hope.

“It was never given to me.”

Anne stared at him, her heart racing; head dizzy with this revelation. She blinked slowly.

He had never received her letter.

He had never known how she felt.

He stepped closer again, narrowing the gap between them. He searched Anne’s eyes with his, Anne returning the gaze. She felt warmed by him, his wonderful, wounded eyes.

She shook her head, feeling a sob rise within her. “I don’t know why you never received it.”

“But you read mine. Why didn’t you come to me after you read it?”

Anne’s eyes fell to the ground. She _had_ read it. Or perhaps she had read what she perceived it to be, her quick temper seeing her tear it to shreds and tossing it from her window.

“I didn’t read it,” she admitted. “I tore it up.”

“You ripped it?”

Anne’s skin flushed as she nodded, a silent tear slipping from her eye. “I’m sorry.”

“Anne.” His voice was gentle, his cold palm coming to rest upon her cheek. His thumb caressed her skin, her tear wiped away by the pad of his finger. 

“I’m in love with you. I fear I always have been. And I know I always will.”

Anne shook her head, teeth pressing into her lip as she felt a fresh wave of emotion crest within her.

“No. No, you can’t be.”

She was engaged to be wed. She was to marry someone else.

Her heart still beat for Gilbert.

“I am.”

She raised her eyes to him, seeing a tear spill from his lashes. It marked a river on the map of his face. His forehead dropped to hers, resting against her skin.

She was warmed by his breath, the white cloud wrapping around her. She was intoxicated by his scent; crisp apples and parchment. A smokiness from the fire and a freshness from the forest.

Her hands rose, slipped over the arms of his coat, along his shoulders. Frozen fingers gripped at the back of his neck.

He sighed.

“Anne,” he whispered, his voice as hushed as winter. “Tell me there is nothing here. That there is nothing between us.”

“There’s nothing between us.”

A second tear fell from her eye, but she pulled him forward and felt his hands come to her waist. Hold her there.

Soon there was nothing between them.

Not misunderstandings or six years of unspoken feelings.

Not space or distance.

Not even air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you play spot the Taylor Swift references at all? Please tally your scores!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this! I certainly loved writing it and exploring a new way to tell a story! (And allowing myself to geek out over how great it is to be a teacher! It truly is such a wonderful job.) I don't write canon very often and so always worry about people being a little out of character. I hope I did LMM and Moira justice. Also, I'm sorry for killing Aunt Jo, but I saved Ruby so I guess it balances itself out.
> 
> I'm embarrassed to share the amount of pages of medical journals I read to find out that they used pinard horns to hear heartbeats. It would have been a two minute Google search but I fell down a deep rabbit hole and, let me tell you, victorian medicine was weird! 
> 
> And yes, if you spotted it, "Your hands are cold" is a direct quote from Pride & Prejudice (2005). In the movie Elizabeth says it and not Darcy, but I had to keep the hand kiss. I will never not find a way to incorporate Pride and Prejudice into a story. 
> 
> If you enjoyed this, please leave a little like or comment. I thrive off validation and really enjoy reading your thoughts and theories. Feedback helps me grow! 
> 
> Or come chat on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/chaos_in_calm) or [Tumblr](https://beckybubbles.tumblr.com/) if you would like. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading. Genuinely, from the bottom of my heart, I appreciate it so very much.
> 
> (And to any The Love Letter readers, I haven't abandoned it. It will update as soon as I can. Promise!) 
> 
> Wishing you all peace, love and so many blessings for this new year.
> 
> Sláinte chugat!
> 
> Becky x


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